BATTLE FOR STARS

They chose the lakeside restaurant again.

After all, this was the place where all of their destinies had begun to change. If not for Balk, they probably would have each gone their separate ways. But because of everything that had happened, every one of them had ended up on a different path.

The scenery was the same as before, yet everyone’s mood had completely changed.

“Little Chubby, what are your plans for the future?” Belina asked during dinner.

Since Lina had failed to leave with them, Belina hoped Little Chubby would go instead. Otherwise, there was no telling when Balk might decide to cause trouble for him too.

“Me...?” Little Chubby clearly had not seriously thought about it yet. He had only just learned what happened after the playoff match.

“You should leave too,” Lina advised him. “It’s much safer than staying here. And if you go to the Kingdom of Kramick, things will be much better with the princess looking after you.”

“When are you leaving?” Little Chubby asked Belina.

“Very soon. We’ll be returning home in a few days.”

“Then... I’ll leave too.”

“Good.” Belina was clearly pleased with his decision.

The group continued chatting for a while, mostly about the future. Too many uncertainties still lay ahead of them.

Just then, Belina’s communicator received a message. It was from Sade.

He had already finalized the arrangements for transferring the starships with Major Claudia and the lieutenant general, and preparations for the handover process were about to begin.

The only remaining matter was for Princess Belina to return to the flagship and take command personally. Although she did not handle the day-to-day operations, she was still the fleet commander, and some orders could only be issued under her authority.

“Little Chubby, are you coming with us now?” Belina asked after ending the call.

“I’ll head over tomorrow. I want to go back and... pack up a few things first.”

“That’s fine. The transfer will still take a few days anyway. Just come before we leave.”

Belina answered casually before turning to Lina.

“Lina, why don’t you escort Little Chubby home? We’ll head straight to the spaceport.”

“No problem.” Lina agreed immediately. She did not mind accompanying the younger boy at all.

Belina and Ding Yufei said goodbye to their two friends and left.

“Zhou Weiyang, what exactly was with that kiss? Why did it feel like my brain suddenly opened up?” Ding Yufei asked impatiently on the way back.

If it had not been for the boost from that kiss today, he truly did not know whether he could have handled Lina’s assault. But he was certain it was not simply the kiss itself. Something else must have happened.

Belina smiled at her beloved.

“You really want to know?”

“Of course. Keeping this bottled up feels terrible.”

“It’s a long story.”

“That’s fine. I’ve got plenty of time.”

“Alright then. Do you remember the first time we met?” Belina asked.

“You mean when you first came to university? You were incredible back then.”

Ding Yufei recalled the scene vividly.

“No. That was actually the second time we met.”

“The second time? We met before that?”

“The first time was when you were in your first year of middle school.”

“Middle school?”

Ding Yufei tried to remember. But most of his memories before the car accident were blurry now. The clearest memories all came afterward.

“You still remember that accident, right?”

“Of course.”

How could he forget? He had nearly died saving a child. Though afterward, he had even received an award for bravery.

“Do you remember what the little girl you saved looked like?”

“The little girl?”

Ding Yufei was stunned.

He remembered that he had saved a little girl around six or seven years old. But they had only met once. Remembering that she existed was one thing; clearly remembering her appearance was another. All he really remembered was that she had been adorable.

Then he looked at the smiling Belina before him, and suddenly realization struck.

“You... you were...”

He became so excited he could barely speak.

Judging by the years that had passed, the ages lined up perfectly.

“That’s right,” Belina admitted openly. “You guessed correctly.”

Ding Yufei’s mouth remained open for a long while.

Ever since leaving Earth, he had known Belina was one of the alien humans. Later he learned she was even a princess. But he had never imagined that he had already shared such a connection with her long ago.

And that also explained why the princess had come to his university, become his classmate, his girlfriend, and traveled around Earth with him on her “adventure.”

“You... since you were an alien princess, then that accident...”

“To be honest, the accident really was caused by my recklessness. But even without your rescue, I wouldn’t actually have been in danger.”

Ding Yufei stared wide-eyed.

My god... so the truly reckless one had actually been himself — the middle-school kid rushing in to save someone.

“I almost died that time,” he sighed.

“You really would have,” Belina said softly. “Your injuries were severe. If you hadn’t met me, you truly wouldn’t have survived.”

“What?!”

Ding Yufei had never expected that.

Then he suddenly remembered something strange from the footage recorded after the accident.

While he lay unconscious and critically injured, the little girl had smashed a bracelet beside him. Not long afterward, she left with the people who came for her and disappeared completely.

“So... I survived because of that bracelet?” Ding Yufei asked uncertainly. In his mind, that strange action was the only explanation.

“Yes.”

“Was there some kind of medicine inside it?”

He clearly remembered no one feeding him any medicine, and unconscious people could not swallow anything anyway.

“It wasn’t medicine. It was a Gaia Seed.”

“A Gaia Seed... Is that some kind of plant?”

“No. More accurately, it’s a living organism — or what you could call a biological intelligent computer.”

“A biological intelligent computer?”

Ding Yufei had never heard of such a thing.

“Our brains are actually very similar to computers,” Belina explained. “Both handle computation, storage, control, input, and output. The difference is that computers perform precise calculations, while human brains specialize in analog processing.”

“True.” Ding Yufei nodded.

“In the future, Earth’s computers will likely develop along two different paths. One path is quantum computers, similar to the intelligent assistants many people in our civilization implant into their brains.”

“And the other path is biological computers.”

“What we call... Gaia.”